Acid hair dye compositions (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 210023/1986 and 101841/1995, etc.) comprising various kinds of organic solvents represented by benzyl alcohol as a penetrant solvent have good penetrability into hair, but have involved such problems that they color the scalp and skin at the same time as hair coloring.
In order to prevent the skin from being colored, it has been conducted to reduce coloring to the skin by thickening a hair dye composition with a water-soluble polymer or the like to prevent the drooping of the hair dye composition (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 87450/1998, 255540/1997 and 245348/1996). However, this method has failed to essentially improve the hair dye composition. The lowering of skin-coloring tendency by analogous compounds of aromatic alcohols, lower alkylene carbonates, or the like (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 53970/1998 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 23911/1973) has also been unsatisfactory.